One thing I've been playing to bring me back into the fold after my stupid hiatus is A Tale in the Desert, a game I played way back in college that I recently scoped out again after I found out the game rebooted itself a little over a month ago. This is the weirdest MMO I've ever played (okay, weirdest successful MMO. I'll tell you about Seed sometime). The basics of the game are you are just an acolyte of sorts, trying to follow the seven principles of Egypt, which involves a lot of building, a lot of talking to people, and a lot of running.

I've been spending some time getting set up, constructing buildings and dealing with flax and making bricks and such. I've completed three principles so far, and really close to achieving two more. The central driving principle of the game, the tests, are extremely difficult tasks that require a lot of coordination and a lot of busywork, and they are still something that I will probably never do. But, they have been readjusted so that you can still get some credit for at least attempting a test, showing that you're willing to put in the effort, if not able to go all the way. Which is good, because some of them, like being elected demi-Pharoah, can only be achieved by one person a month. ONE PERSON.

Also, one thing that I didn't notice I missed until I realized it was gone is the Conflict tree, which used to be about playing games each other, which was replaced by the Harmony tree, which is about being nice to each other. It's an odd change (and one that happened quite a while ago, apparently).

So that's all I've been playing. Not ALL, but quite a bit a time has been killed there lately. And so we're back, back in the desert, back on the blog, back on the bacon.